Electric Vehicles Would Reduce Pollution

Published: May 16, 1990

To the Editor:

Los Angeles' plan for a demonstration of electrified vehicles may be the most important project for improving this country's air quality and energy picture to appear in a long time (Business Day, April 19).

The best way to reduce urban air pollution is to curb it at its source. Electrified vehicles would eliminate all the emissions from vehicles, since the end use of electricity is 100 percent clean. The improvements in urban air quality will be dramatic. If only 5 percent of all urban fleets were electrified by the year 2000 - a realistic goal - nitrogen oxide emissions in cities would be reduced by some 200,000 tons, hydrocarbons by one-quarter million tons and carbon monoxide by 2 million tons from today's levels.

Just as dramatic would be the improvement in our energy balance. Electrifying even a small share of our vehicle fleet will lead to a sharp decline in petroleum use and oil imports. If 5 percent of the urban miles traveled could be in electrified vehicles by the year 2000, four billion gallons of gasoline would be saved that year, our oil imports would decline by a quarter million barrels per day, and the United States balance of trade would improve by $1.5 billion.

The additional electricity required to power the vehicles would amount to only 50 billion kilowatt hours per year, requiring an additional 2 percent of our electricity production. Since this could be generated at night with capacity currently in reserve for the heavier daytime hours, the greater efficiency of plant operations would cause the average cost of electricity to decline.

Electrifying our transportation system in the next century is one of the surer ways to improve the environment as well as to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. Current experimental programs are promising steps in the right direction.